“Shootin’ The Bull”
by Christopher B Swift
2/13/2026
Live Cattle:
In my opinion, the shorter cattle supply continued to embolden cattle producers this week. A common thread this week has been money. How much is needed, and how much more will be needed, continues to be discussed amongst producers and lenders. The bloodletting of packers continues as well with boxes in no better shape. There is some concern over long fed cattle, the number of, and what could shake that inventory out of the yards. All factors continue to be discussions of what may be, but at the moment, the belief is that market share is being garnered and those doing such have not achieved their goal. Canada continues to be a thorn in a lot of producers' side that would like to not have to bid against them. As they have seemingly had a tendency to bid cattle away, those marketing to them are not so opposed. Attempting to learn more about the increasing demand from Canada, I asked Grok about this and it paraphrased the answer to this: Canada's beef industry benefits significantly from importing U.S. feeder cattle (young animals ready for fattening), finishing them domestically, and exporting the resulting beef to markets like China. This process leverages integrated North American supply chains under the USMCA trade agreement, which allows duty-free movement of live cattle. I also learned that being duty-free is nothing new, but all in all, I was puzzled for a while, but now believing China is simply circumventing the US, for US cattle, regardless of where fed, it all makes sense. I also asked what may take place were President Trump to back out of the USMCA. The answer from that was, it wouldn't make a lot of difference, but may swap from being duty free to a Most Favored Nation status. So, this cleared up a few things in my mind that may help make a more informed decision going forward.
Price action this week was sideways to higher with some gaps from last week filled, but still not much definitively that suggests higher or lower trading. Basis remains positive and is believed keeping producers from marketing into the discounts of futures. The future remains a very critical situation as many believe this first quarter and first half of the year to be the lowest supplies. If more cattle are made available, or beef demand were to be curtailed, cattle bought today would most likely realize the current projected losses in the future. Of more concern up front is what is believed a heavily weighted front-end supply of long fed cattle that more likely than not, need to die. Attempts to limit cattle to slaughter has the potential to backfire, but regardless of this, beef supplies will be ample per head. A possible train wreck that I could foresee would be that cattle feeders find themselves needing to market more inventory, for whatever reason, and packers then flooded with cattle and the beef market flooded with beef. Another possible train wreck would be that nothing takes place in the near term to increase cattle production; prices continue to rise, producing greater losses to the packer, and processing capacity declines further.
I made recommendations this week for corn and soybean farmers to make a sale against their new crop production. This is intended to be the start of marketing the new crop and I am anxious to see if this is the start to a higher average price or lower average price. Soybeans have been the biggest benefactor of the Trump bump when having mentioned beans. Bean oil is the outlier with new contract highs made this week and a bull market believed intact. December corn remains dormant, and not much is expected to until closer to the March 31st planting intentions report. Energy was volatile all week with two false breakouts, higher and lower. For the moment, I remain friendly towards the energy market with both China and the US having adopted a loose monetary policy, suggesting more inflation. When combined with the Saber rattling with Iran and a US armada of ships in the region, I can see the reason to not be short going into the weekend. Were the Saber rattling to calm down, I would anticipate oil to slip back under $60.00. Bonds were higher, helping to stimulate whatever it is that needs cheaper money. Friday's CPI report showed the same thing; inflation continues to rise, albeit at a slower rate. It is difficult to explain the volume of trading taking place, the extent of price swings and the volatility of. It is enormous and believed creating unintended circumstances that may not have been realized, or made public yet. As a great deal of the markets are tied together, through automated algorithmic computer programs, a blip in one sector could have ramifications in all. Long way around the barn, but this time frame feels a great deal like when the housing crisis took place. We can see that things are moving fast and don't make sense, but market action has not relayed those fears. Unfortunately, they most likely won't either until we see a large enough break in price that exposes potential losses within certain markets. Recall that Bernie Madoff didn't have one penny of his investors' money at risk in the stock market; he simply cooked the books so well, that everyone wanted a slice of his pie. Can you recall how many famous people and well-respected investors and investor services were dupped by him? Do we think there is not another Bernie out there now, or worse, a market that had dupped a large portion of investors into believing you can just make something up out of the blue and it become real? Bernie Madoff scammed people for 17 years before being discovered. Bitcoin was created in January of 2009, 17 years ago.
/Amazon%20-%20Image%20by%20bluestork%20via%20Shutterstock.jpg)
/Salesforce%20Inc%20HQ%20building-by%20JHVEPhoto%20via%20Shutterstock.jpg)
/Semiconductor%20close%20up%20by%20Yosi%20Azwan%20via%20iStock.jpg)
